In Our Day: Actors in Search of Something

Hong Sang-soo's In Our Day has two parallel storylines: in one, an aspiring actress (Park Mi-so) comes to visit a successful one (Kim Min-hee) who's staying with the latter's possibly alcoholic friend (Song Seon-mi); in the other, an aspiring actor (Ha Seong-guk) drops by the apartment of a newly sober poet (Gi Ju-bong) who's being filmed by a young documentarian (Kim Sunghyun) for a school project. But as the poet states himself: "Life seems to go on without any connection to those reasons." Like many other Hong films, there's a lot of loosely connected dialogue delivered in profile by two characters facing off so sometimes having a triangle of players lends itself to more dynamic exchanges and tableaux. Even an early scene between two friends benefits when a big fluffy cat named "Us" enters the frame.

In that first scenario, the drama finally escalates when Us suddenly disappears, sending the two main women into a panicked despair. In the second storyline, the poet descends back into bad drinking habits when his admirer runs out to get two bottles of soju. As in his other recent pics, Hong takes on the roles of cinematographer, director, writer, composer, and editor. Is it my imagination or as a result is there less music, less cuts, and less varied angles? The result lands somewhere between Andy Warhol and John Cassavetes, with maybe a little of Woody Allen at his more philosophical thrown in — a static pseudorealism that's neither antidrama nor heightened naturalism. For Hong, one of the most prolific Korean auteurs, "maintaining a clear vision may be the hardest thing in the world." He's right. Just ask the poet.